


PM: Enjoy victory.

by Semiotaxonomy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Gen, I still can't tell if this is shippy or not, Other, Recovery, Reunion, also makes a good steamy palerom, or should i say carapangst, transdimensional postapocalyptic murdertrauma survivors anonymous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 02:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semiotaxonomy/pseuds/Semiotaxonomy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That's not quite as easy as it sounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reap spoils.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my extremely self-indulgent exercise in wallowing in feelings and then vomiting the results into a text document. As indirectly alluded to this is set in some vague future canon divergence, but it was never anything like a prediction. Plot schmot, it's FEELINGS time!
> 
> And yet, somehow, as soon as canon Serenity started messing it up I felt like I needed to hurry up, stop dicking around with infinite edits, and post this thing already. I dunno.

The anger does not end with the battle. You triple-check to make sure you've won, and check again, and feel no different than before. You assumed it would be joyful; a burst of triumph, a wave of catharsis to wash away the drive for vengeance. Is that not what victory means? But those assumptions were built aeons ago by someone who still dealt in such things as expectation. Instead you find yourself moving as if you've done this a thousand times, as if it were routine, and each nerve in your body keeps on shrieking your desire to destroy him.

There are people around, an intrinsic intrusion to make sure you continue about your business. You do not bother to look at them; there is no fanfare beyond the standard crackle as you remove yourself.

The anger does not fade given time and solitude. You find yourself in the wrecked bowels of a meteor from some Veil or other, taking your time to pad implacably through its maze. It is not a difficult one. You do not know precisely where your goal is, and you feel like just bringing yourself there would jinx it anyway, but you have enough a sense for it to tell the right path. The delay prickles only mildly. You get sick of looking at the dead grey walls between you and there, however, and close your eye though it barely makes a difference.

You open a door with your hand like a normal person. It's sort of novel.

The anger does not dissolve when you see him. You really wish it did. You are standing in the doorway of a storage room in weirdly bright colors, casting your enormous shadow over a hunched figure in amazingly abused rags. He is the only friend you have left, and he is alive, exactly the way you'd hoped and feared for back when you dealt in expectation. Victory is nothing -- _this_ is the true ending. You could close the book here, you think, leave it at this moment forever, hollow fury and all.

But the moment goes by just like every other, and he moves first, scrambling behind a box too small for him and trembling because he is terrified of you. You want to slap him for it, even knowing your current kind of slaps could ruin a planet, and then you hate yourself more for feeling that. You had actually forgotten after all this time that you are a monster. You had better deal with that first. You remove the ring.

Except you can't find it, and that makes no sense. You examine yourself thoroughly. One arm, one eye, two wings, but you can't find the ring to take it off. The one big spidery hand you have is bare, and you shake it and look again and shake it again, like you could throw off your prototyping if you thrash hard enough. You don't have time for this, this is not the time for this, you have no idea what you ever did to make Skaia decide to screw with you now. This isn't how it's supposed to _go_.

A wave of green crashes through the room and you realize you've drawn the bloody sword from your torso. Damn it all. You're making things worse. You lock eye(s) with your one friend, who is peering at you with an expression you can't read. As gently as you can figure out how, you toss the sword aside. You tell him that you are sorry, and find your breathing is heavy.

From his safe spot he, in turn, apologizes for his manners. 

The sheer _him_ of him threatens to overpower you. The back of your mind has leapt to life in a frantic effort to process every intimately familiar thing: the disuse in his voice, the flickering mote attending him, the pretend town laid out in garish chalk drawings. Inanely, you wonder if it has a postal system. You sit on the floor, back against a wall, exhausted.

He is alive. You are too, he responds in kind. He sounds almost awed.

You cannot get any feeling into your own voice but you do mean it when you tell him you are so glad he's safe. After a while he comes around to the front of the box to make a shabby mirror of your position and does not look at you. He says he almost didn't recognize you. You do not retort that of course he didn't, why would he, and also don't add that he has every right to be afraid. He says he was told he would see you again but he had no idea what had actually happened to you.

He asks about the others. It is completely obvious that he knows what to expect, but he probably needs to hear it said. Even so, your sharp teeth clench around any reply you might have made and turn it into a growl that makes him flinch. You say, instead, that you are tired.

He is unable to get too close to you, but does his best to help anyway and fetches you a few more soft things which are in short supply. In the corner you pile up shredded bits of plush effigies and some sort of violently red lizard outfit. You curl up. With that dizzying awareness in the back of your mind you try to keep track of where he is but forget shortly before you slip into dull sleep on a backdrop of anger.

When you awaken, you will find that the sword has returned to its sheath, which is you. It IS technically part of you, after all. It will have to be part of your routine as well.


	2. Set boundaries.

Your sense of time has atrophied, but you rest for what you are pretty sure is a long while. When you are not sleeping you watch him from your corner. He is almost always around, keeping a safe distance at first which he gets over pretty quickly. That resilience is hard to imagine. He brings you food, always vegetable and usually green, and by looking at him it is clear he is offering you a miracle treasure which he firmly intends will fix everything completely forever. Every time.

The food does not fix everything and your mouth is ill suited to it, but the attitude does have some effect on you. His fussing seems to be a universal constant even more reliable than the green sun burning in your mind. It's nice to see him being himself, although you do not particularly like to be fussed over. You assure him that he doesn't need to. You are just very tired, which you have every right to be really. He's told you he has been here for years. You spent years raging through the void, then. It didn't feel like any amount of time you could put a name to.

The room you two stay in is more than big enough to be your world now, and surveying it from your bedding is all you need of being alive. You don't even think about where he might go when he disappears out the door or where the food comes from. It can't be important.

Then you watch him receive a visitor and feel annoyed about it. It's one of the children who are out trying to save the universe this time for sure, which of all the things you haven't been thinking about is more or less the last you want to be reminded of. You're done with the players, you don't care anymore, and they can't care about either of you. The presence of the pale human boy whose eyes are hidden by dark glasses -- you can't remember whether you've seen this one before -- is incapable of being anything but an insult. But he is as nonchalant as anyone could be, talking almost constantly even though you can barely make out half of it and you don't think your friend is even trying.

so tz says shes busy with the game cant make it  
im like what kind of world are we living in if we cant even make time to visit can town  
walk down the streets not a cloun in the sky  
say hi to the mayor he waves and kisses a baby he keeps around  
maybe do a little shopping  
you sit in town square watch the cans doing their can thing and you just know  
this town is the american dream this is what were fighting for boys  
whats the point of even trying if you dont stop and smell the shitty chalk roses and probably slobber all over them  
might as well just scratch the whole thing again  
so you gonna introduce me to your friend or what

He has switched abruptly from aimless muttering to actual speaking, shooting you an obvious look despite his shades. Defiantly you emerge from the pile, yawn and stretch, aware of the fangs in your muzzley mouth, and also that you are taller than both of the others and are probably sort of looming. Works for you. You look back at him.

see now thats more like it  
youre jacks good twin or whatever you got a lot to live up to dude

A grumble which is more of a growl emerges from the back of your throat. Your friend panics, and guilt touches you faintly, but the human doesn't seem to react at all, just keeps on saying things exactly as before.

you here to get in on the city planning  
lucky you we got an empty seat on the board just opened up looks like  
town this perfect aint gonna make itself you gotta bring the picturesque tranquility down on it  
open up a can of podunk on this place right next to the cans of hundred year old gravy  
thomas kinkades gonna take one look and slit his wrists  
i mean if he wasnt already killed by meteors  
wait i guess he was killed by crazy trollbitches this time  
or juggalos or whatever  
look point is if youre into playing with chalk like a retarded toddler we got that shit covered  
yeah settle down mayor i got it  
brought you the good stuff dont say i never did my part for society

You settle down in a different corner and watch them play, looming less but keeping your eye on the annoying boy. Rationally you know he's harmless, but this is what your instincts demand right now. His endless monologue becomes a meaningless drone like the falling of rain, which you haven't heard in an extremely long time -- or more relevantly to your frame of reference, the howl of wind across wasteland dunes. The way it chafes takes you back to those days.

The boy annoys you, and when he leaves you stop feeling so annoyed, and that is strange and surprising at this point. You aren't sure when the anger stopped being a part of being awake; it must have been a while ago, unnoticed. There is an unfilled space where it was, but it's nice to have been actually angry _at_ something for once, and you think it must be good. You further notice that you aren't actually so tired anymore, and maybe haven't been that for a while either.

Your friend is still standing where he saw the boy off. You approach carefully so as not to startle him. You ask him to show you where the food is kept so that you can help.


	3. Be good.

You have another visitor the next day. This one changes everything. Your strange auricular appendages perk straight up when you hear her footsteps coming, which gives your friend some visible confusion, but you can't pay much attention to him right now.

The door opens and oh yes, it's Jade, it's JADE! Part of you wants to bound over to her immediately but you can't muster anything like that kind of exuberance, so you have to just sit there on the floor and hope she notices you and bothers to come over. It feels like you haven't seen her in so _long,_ which is odd since you've barely met her, and you don't know what's so amazing about her, but oh man she's smiling at you!

hi guys!!!! :D  
i hope you dont mind me dropping by...  
im so glad to see you again! i remember you guys, thanks so much for your help! all of it!!!  


She approaches you. Yes. _Yes._ She leans over a bit to look at you better.  


you ARE the mail lady, right??  
oh wow, you really look just like becquerel! i mean you kind of are him since he prototyped himself and all so it shouldnt really be surprising but...  
i dont know, i guess knowing it and seeing it are different things

Sadness mixes in with her smile. You don't know whether to feel terrible or not. She seems to notice, though, and catches herself, and goes back to just being happy. She is the _best._  


im sorry! bec was basically the best dog ever and i do still miss him but its okay  
that all happened a long time ago and he left a lot of himself around to keep me safe  
heck, theres even a part of him in me now!  
and i know thats more than a lot of people have...  
but its just really nice to see him in someone who isnt myself or a terrible murderer!  
i know its hard but if anyone had to end up with that ring and get the prototypings, im really glad it was you!!!!

You realize that she has crouched down and gotten face to face with you. You realize that your ridiculous snout has opened in some sort of canine grin with your tongue lolling out. You realize that, somewhere off to the side, your friend is boggling helplessly at these shenanigans. You can't really blame him but you can't bring yourself to care.  


i really hope this doesnt sound too weird or anything  
miss mail lady can i give you a hug????

You would pretty much agree to anything she said anyway, so she throws her arms around your neck and buries her face into your fur. A hand comes up and scratches behind your ear in just the way you always liked best, _she is the best._  


you were so good. good dog.

You are never going to be unhappy again.

Jade pulls herself away and sits on the floor with you and your friend, and chats just a bit about what's going on outside. You start to wonder _why_ you don't care. The children have been extremely busy with their own game, and their work is important, but maybe that just means they could use more help. Wouldn't it be better if you were doing something productive?

She tells you about the new worlds out there with their puzzles and problems. Oh, but she brought the old worlds too, uh most of them, and there are survivors she'd be happy to introduce you to if you want! She speaks of the new Derse and the new Prospit, how their war was stillborn and the Battlefield lost, but the hostility remains. Even if it isn't hers, she was happy to see a non-destroyed Prospit again, complete with its own new king and queen. You can feel every inch of the universe as she lays it out, all too horribly vast.

You are a queen yourself. That concept is even more ridiculous than the considerable level of ridiculousness it started out with. You cannot imagine claiming the refugees as your own; you loved Prospit as much as anyone loved their home, but you were never its monarch while it was whole, and now it's gone. The residents of the new session aren't your people either, and certainly neither are the alien children. Your people consist entirely of the funny little expatriate Dersite sitting across a box labeled STOAR from you, and he arguably needs a lot of things but being ruled isn't one of them.

Yet, as a queen, the harshest duty you could ever have has already been fulfilled, the enemy you have hated like you never will again dealt with. Maybe that's enough.

Then Jade puts her hand on your head to stand up and you forget all about that stuff again.

sorry guys but i really have to go  
ill try to come back when i get the chance but i dont know when that will be...  
to be totally honest, this was all daves idea in the first place!  
he was really going on about how much you guys could use a visit  
i mean he didnt actually SAY that but you know how dave is  
but im really glad i came!!  
you guys take care of yourselves!!!!! <3  


When she leaves that strange elation leaches out of the room again and out of you, and everything is no longer changed. You close your mouth. You have no idea what just happened.


	4. Be touched.

You go exploring. He comes along even though he seems to know his way around as well as he cares to. Many parts of the laboratory are inaccessible, and others are regularly visited by children for whatever resources they have left here, but quite a lot is abandoned to you. That is what he tells you when you ask, and he will happily answer anything else he can, but you want to look around yourself.

You suspect that he has still been looking at you strangely since the visit from Jade. Succumbing at last to curiosity, he asks you what it is like being changed.

You tell him that it's confusing. There are so many appendages you didn't have before, including ones you don't have now but could if you wanted to. There are senses beyond your previous imagining, sound and smell being high on the list along with that simmering sense of the Green Sun. Many of these things come with their own instincts and feelings, which is good for helping you figure out how to use them, but also potentially difficult. Bearing prototypings is kind of interesting, actually, but it is hard to ever ignore. Which makes sense for the burden you know it represents.

You understand that you're approaching omnipotence, if not quite as closely as you tend to get credit for. You don't want to use it. Doing things -- moving your actual physical body -- helps you feel like a person instead of a fever dream.

He ponders this, probably trying to imagine it, and the two of you walk along in silence for a time. You let the pause stretch out and put its feet up until you cannot stand it any more. It feels incomplete. Ah, yes. You still need to answer his first question, the one about the others.

So you explain about how everyone died. You tell it succintly and mechanically without reliving the viscerals again -- how you swung the regisword far too slowly through the air, how you carefully inventoried corpses to make sure you were alone, how weightless his body felt under the dying sky. As nice a luxury as surprise would be, he takes it with only regret. You know he has already mourned them over the years, and mourned you too.

What happened then? he asks.

It is hard to find the words for, but there is also not much to tell. You flew through a void, and since neither time nor space worked right you cannot say how far you went or how long it took. You don't think you would have noticed anyway. There were occasional clashes, and the glimpses of foreign dreamscapes, but you could not be distracted. Most of the trip might as well have been a single picture painted of you, your prey, and hate.

He asks if possibly you would consider just removing the ring.

You had forgotten to ever mention to him that you couldn't. Maybe you thought he would guess it; you can't imagine what he must have thought instead. You tell him now. It's been days and you still can't understand where the ring went or how you still have this form without it, but you certainly cannot remove a ring which you do not seem to be wearing. Fixing that is one of the few things you can't do -- and one of the few things you really want to.

It all sounds stupid as you say it. Like you're talking about a toe you stubbed. This is the sort of thing you should be panicked over, isn't it? Don't you care? It's so hard to focus on the important things these days.

As for him he halts up short a moment. This is a distressing state of affairs! Then he tells you that he will keep an eye out.

You simply cannot help it, you reach down and pat his head. He feels like a statue, just slightly warmer; you go down to his shoulder and find he has gone hilariously rigid at the contact. You barely hear yourself say that he can double check for you if he likes. He reaches up stiffly and takes your unresisting hand in both of his uneasy ones and holds it in front of his face like he doesn't know what to do. You are not sure what you're doing either; you are watching the dull fondness and dull awkwardness wrestle from too far away. You take your hand back.

At this point his firefly darts in front of your face, blinking furiously, and you blink back. Wink, you guess. It flits around between yourself and your friend with as much frenzy as you can ascribe to a tiny insect. You wonder what it wants. You wonder this aloud.

He notes that Serenity is a good and loyal friend of his and points out that it could potentially be considered better manners to refer to her in a befitting manner. He suggests that maybe poor Serenity is tired of being ignored. It dawns on you that the firefly has been with him the entire time you have been here. You _saw_ it, or her rather. You just have not bothered to acknowledge the bug. He adds that he did not want to pester you about the matter before.

You apologize to Serenity. You thank her for being with him all this time. You tell her how much you admire and appreciate her loyalty. This is not facetious; you remember now that she too crossed the universes with his body. It is hardly her fault that you liked ignoring those memories. Your words do not seem to satisfy her, but she calms down with time.

Your expedition shies from the inhabited parts. Even without them the facilities are big and full of strange things. You marvel at no-longer-functioning machines once meant to create useful items; you open several boxes of decorative images before realizing that they're all going to be like that; you try to ignore cloning apparati that make both of you uneasy. You eat a weird bug-like thing left by the non-human kids and regret it right away. But you are unable to take serious interest in anything out there, and in time the two of you return to the room with nothing changed for the excursion. Although you've expressed this more than once already, you tell him again how glad you are that he has survived.

He is glad you survived too. He asks you, a bit nervously, if he can touch your head like the Jade girl did. You seemed to like it and he is curious about the fur, whether it can really be as soft as it looks, and she seemed to like it too.

It seemed to make you happy.

That's what it seemed like is all.

Physical contact is strange and foreign. Human girl hypnotism aside you cannot remember the last time anybody touched you deliberately, and it occurs to you how odd it was to put your hand on him earlier. Neither of you is used to this or has been in a very, very long time. But, then, you did start it. And maybe he is right.

So you kneel down and he pats your head and before you can stop yourself you lick his face. He spends the rest of the day being embarrassed while that thing you ate turns over in your impaled stomach.


	5. Take issue.

He brings a windfall of random junk, thoroughly pleased with himself. Much of it is for his town game, which is a good enough use for unwanted miscellanea, but there are also items meant to supplement the quality of life you two enjoy. He intends to decorate. He observed the kids at it and thinks he's developed an eye. He also adds that he would like to try this eating with dishes thing. You're fairly sure you're supposed to be impressed by the sophistication of it all, and you appreciate his spirit if nothing more, but sophistication seems beside the point of your current existence. You yourself have been adding compellingly shiny baubles to your nest, after all, so it's not like you can judge such things.

His specific present to you is what you believe to be somebody's bedsheet. Since you don't know what you're supposed to do with it he explains that he thought you might want to wear it, if you like. He has noticed that your current outfit seems to have sustained a lot of damage when you became a big bird-dog thing. He isn't really sure what ladies like, or what birds or dogs like for that matter, but he thinks this has something to do with it. Plus the green color is extremely pleasing and would surely complement you handsomely.

You are mostly taken aback and accept the sheet sort of helplessly. When was the last time anyone gave you an honest-to-goodness present, ever? Also there is an awful lot of cloth and you can't imagine where to start with it. You half think he's forgotten that real clothes exist; you've forgotten what it was like to care about them. What you've been wearing was a war banner you modified personally, you dimly recall, back when you'd first ceded that presenting yourself as a Parcel Mistress no longer fit. How you did it is nowhere near your current memories. It was such a long time ago that those things mattered.

Of course you thank him for the gift, and you drag it over to your nest to try and figure it out. You fail to get very far in that, instead settling to watch him go through his other acquisitions, which he makes clear you are also welcome to but you don't have the heart to take anything. He is not adding to his town yet, just setting up for future use. It seems he's grown accustomed to having companions. Perhaps he has likewise lost zeal for pursuing the activity on his own.

Has he really made such close friends among those children? Maybe that's where he goes when he leaves. But he doesn't actually leave that much in the first place. Is it not restrictive for him to stay here with you? Shouldn't you be the one hovering over him, even following him out there? You are much better equipped to take care of him, aren't you? You cannot look at him anymore without seeing a limp black body bleeding out.

He is sorting out objects by criteria you can only guess. Here is an earthen plant vessel, slightly cracked. There is an item of silverware. A fragment of complicated electronics that resembles a hand. A chunk of stone which takes a moment to resolve as half the head of a frog idol --

In a flash you are so furious you can't see straight. You'd thought the anger had left you but of course it hadn't, it just left its dead dry wood waiting for a spark to flare into rage. Anger kept you going for so long. You're an utter fool, and he's even worse.

You are now right up next to him, not having bothered to use actual movement to get there. He startles. You find you brought the sheet along and drop it to snatch the stone away. Just what does he think he's doing? And he doesn't even _get_ what the problem is, which just makes it _worse_. He didn't think it mattered anymore. He never felt like the illicit imagery thing was a big deal personally, although he has to admit frogs are kind of gross. You want to murder the way he's looking at you.

You're so stupid! Why would you think you had any sort of CLAIM to this guy? When all was said and done you knew him for barely a day before he got impaled and you flew off to avenge him like it was any of your business, which was years ago already. Just because the queen you'd revered so much said so, and sure you'd started to like those strangers, but what the hell did you ever know about them or anything else?

He jumps back because your sword has appeared in your torso. You hurl the idol to the floor and take the blade back out, infuriated that you have to choose one thing at a time to clench your fist around. You do not want to see that awful profaned idol lying there. You do not want to wear the inane monster bedsheet it has landed on. You do not want to be near the impossible fool who thinks the latter is more important than the former. You don't want this weapon presenting itself to you just because you are upset, either.

You don't remember how wrapping yourself in cloth went, but you remember wrapping the sword. You seize the sheet with tentacles and cut it in terse, frustrated strokes that make him wince. He can wince all he wants, but it feels good to sheathe your sword in something besides yourself for once, to impose some small measure of control even if it's over your own body. You gather it up along with the battered stone and stow them both behind your nest pile, where they will be unobtrusive and useless. You stay there and start to calm down. In a twisted way you're proud that you didn't flood the room with your upset, and it makes you sick that this is something you consider a victory.

He calms down as well but a long time later when you look at him he is forlorn. You apologize. You confess that honestly you were never all THAT serious about frogs either. But you always liked seeing them.

He apologizes too. What you really want is for him to either say he forgives you or defend himself, not steal the blame, but you know he doesn't know that. Dutifully you fetch the remains of the bedsheet and make them part of your pile, and arrange the sword and idol more carefully back there along with your other shiny things. You thank him for the gift again. The sword does not return to you the next time you sleep.


	6. Come clean.

You get him to help with your wings next. They are in sorry shape, all bent feathers and mats of dried blood, and you couldn't really take care of it yourself even if you had two hands, not even with tentacles. He thinks this is a strange and possibly silly thing to do, but he does not refuse, and anyway he's not the one who has wings to worry about. If you're going to be stuck with them you might as well make them yours.

So he sits behind you and combs through your feathers with his stubby little digits as Serenity bumps against your wrist, prodding that gnawing feel in your belly. You instruct him to pull the bad ones out, which he does reluctantly and not as often as you'd like. You thought this would be soothing but find you are getting annoyed again.

You tell him to pull that one out, you can tell from up here that it needs to go. He tugs on it, but it does not give easily, and when he gets it out it is accompanied by a soft low noise from you. The hands vanish from your wings. You say nothing and wait for him to resume, which he does. The next time it happens he pauses for longer. Even Serenity stops.

You remind him, curtly, that this has to be done and he should not worry about hurting you. It's not as if he really can. And it's not like you are going to hurt him either.

He says he knows.

If he knows then he should act like it, you say. You thought he was getting used to this. Was your fur not soft enough for him?

He says no, it was quite soft. He gets back to work, but after a few moments you stand suddenly, startling him. You have him wait while you stalk out of the room and you bring back water.

You were thirsty for so long that it still feels unconscionable to waste actual for-real water on cleaning, but you know that that there is plenty now. He is still sneaking sips of it himself but does not seem as bothered as you are, and slowly his hands and the water ease the filth out of your feathers. It is decadent. Perhaps this is what being a queen is supposed to feel like. In any case the process is much more relaxing now.

You ask him why he puts up with the way you've been acting. You ask if you scare him.

He insists that you don't. Even though there are the times when you make growly sounds like that or when the light catches you from behind so all he can see is the silhouette. He has had a lot of practice at ignoring that kind of fear.

You hear him halt up, indecisive or confused. He had nightmares about you, he says. Early on and especially when he was still recovering, when he had no idea what had happened. He'd told himself they were all just the work of his imagination, but now he knows that maybe they weren't entirely. You do look like his nightmares. But you aren't them; you are so much more than a dream.

And even though the dreams were terrible, when they tapered off he missed you. So, anyway, it's not you that he's afraid of. That has nothing to do with it. He is just so very worried about you.

Which strikes you as a completely bizarre thing to say. You're not even worried about you. You flex your wings away from his grasp and twist to peer down at him with your one eye, balanced on your one hand. This isn't fair. He has more reason than anyone to be uncomfortable with you the way you are these days. But it isn't fair to you either, and you are tired of trying to be the one who's okay with it. And you're not sure you ever actually have been.

You tell him that you are tired of looking like Jack Noir. Jack Noir is gone and you should at least just be an ordinary mutilated dog-bird-monster. Or Jade said you looked like her friend. But, you say, you can't stop thinking of it that way either. You think you feel like the Slayer too sometimes.

He says that is obvious nonsense because you are wonderful and therefore he doesn't think you would ever be like that guy.

You should argue, but his decisive approval is so heavy it knocks the words out of you. He makes no sense. You remember when you gave yourself to that murderous rage, standing on the threshhold of nothing over a dying body which an insect had to remind you of. You cannot explain something like that to him.

Instead he says that he knows you saved him. He thanks you. He is happy that he could see you again. He sounds like he means it.

You turn around all the way and knock him over in the process (producing a quaint little exclamation) and you don't even care. Your hand is on the floor next to him now, where your arm is just shy of brushing against his side and that feels dangerous somehow. He is soaking wet from cleaning your wings, you have no idea how he managed to get that much water on himself. You can't tear your eye away from him.

He is squirming in his tattered rags with the big hole through them and if you look close you can see the scar on his abdomen, matte black on glossy black.

That scar is where you saved him. At the end of everything, despite yourself, you saved him. How could he ever be a stranger? No, at this moment he is the most precious thing in any universe and you kind of want to kill everything else that isn't him just to get it out of the way but you know you won't because you would do anything, absolutely anything, for him.

He stops flailing and sits up to ask you, aghast, what is wrong, why are you crying? You could not possibly explain it, and even if you could you are sobbing too hard to say much, so you just assure him that it's okay.

It's okay. You know it's okay because no matter what else happens and has happened, none of it can be more important than the fact that you saved him.

You hold him like a doll, face crushed awkwardly against your chest, and cry. By the time you are done you're as soaked through as he. You set him down with great care. He looks so lost that you almost feel bad for it, except that crying has made you feel much better. Most likely he could use some of it too. He is every bit as damaged as you are, every bit as helpless and pathetic. He has no idea what to do and he will get it wrong time and time again. But even so he will be the one to keep everything safe from you.

As if you've been cleaned both outside and in, you are more comfortable than you can ever remember feeling, but you do not sleep that night. Some petty part of you is thinking it's okay that the others died if it meant _he_ was the one you saved. You wonder if you would feel the same about any one of them if they were alive in this room instead. You're really not sure. You miss them deeply, but that only makes them a few more entries on the long list of things you miss.

You can't tell anymore if anything you feel is genuine or if you're just clinging to whatever you can because you have to. Maybe there isn't a difference. Tonight it doesn't matter, because what you do know is that you saved him and you can never be wrong about that.


	7. Build up.

Children come again: the pale boy Dave along with a grey-skinned girl, which makes two who keep their eyes hidden. He restrains her from lunging at you with her gaping maw in a surprisingly non-threatening way. Of course, you would not have picked a fight with them anymore anyway.

BUT 1 D1DN'T G3T 4 CH4NC3 B3FOR3  
DON'T YOU TH1NK W3 SHOULD T4K3 TH3 OPPORTUN1TY TO G3T TO KNOW OUR MOST POW3RFUL 4LLY  
TH3 SOV3R31GN SL4Y3R SL4Y3R!

yeah thats exactly who your mouth needs to not be on  
also hes part dog and i dont know if its worst or best case scenario he starts licking you back

SH3, D4V3!  
M1SS COCONUT FROST3D 4W3SOM3 1S 4 L4DY

did you smell that too  
that is some sick shit terezi

This time you bring a thick tome you picked out earlier. It is evidently a book about the care of large birds, which you find mildly off-putting, but you must admit that the appealing designs on its cover are more important for your current purpose. Your friend immediately knows exactly what you're doing and is delighted, and as per his mayoral duties he helps you find a good place to set up. Your building does not need to be the center of attention but should be central enough to be convenient.

You wonder what happened to the chalk that he gave you so long ago, but you don't have it, so you find a shade of yellow that nobody seems to be using too much. In another lifetime you might have felt a little silly as you start planning out the postal routes and marking them down.

You think that you would like to visit this session's Prospit sometime. Perhaps you'll find an opportunity to help them, but you know you shouldn't feel obligated. You are not exactly homesick for it but it would be nice to see the golden spires again. Does the new world have its own parcel mistress who is still anxious about dealing with bureaucrats and would never dream of using a weapon? For that matter, what would become of a villein growing weary of the conflict in this universe? The idea of meeting yourself is strange to say the least, but you could survive it if it came down to that. Maybe you could go to Derse too. It can't be ALL terrible.

It's true the players are none of your business, but you might like to just see how John is doing, and meeting the other children probably wouldn't be bad. Later you'll be ready to greet the other session's refugees, and then... you'll figure out how to proceed. It should be easy and fast to fly wherever you want even if you don't want to teleport, and you can leave your sword behind knowing it will return to you if you need it. How satisfying this is, making plans.

The visitors accept your participation without missing a beat, though Dave seems to talk a lot less when there is someone actually listening to him. At one point you blatantly abuse your abilities to steal the dark blue chalk. All four of you work together under the watchfully erratic beacon of Serenity and you still don't exactly get what the big deal is with this town game, but you are definitely okay with it.

H3Y GUYS  
YOU GUYS 1S TH3 FL1CK3RBUG...  
TRY1NG TO T4LK TO US >:?

Dave doesnt know shit about morse code, but his friend knows enough to at least recognize TROLL MORS3 1NT3RM1TT3NT S1GN4L P4TT3RN. You have no idea what either of them is on about. She has to consult with her glasses apparently, and there is some debate or possibly just the ongoing commentary from Dave, it's hard to tell, but in the end they arrive at a translation.

1T S4YS  
"FL1P YOUR SPR1T3 YOU MORON!"

You have never been so embarrassed in your entire life.

### Epilogue

You ask your friend if he will miss the fur, or the feathers since you have been informed those were also pretty soft. He says that he did like them but he also likes your carapace; it is lustrous and fine.

Later, you will take him aside and talk with him about the others: about the faces you have trouble remembering now, the tones of their voices, their habits, the way she carried herself, the way he shot at you. It feels as if that will make the fuzzy memories more real, or explain to you the difference between him and them, but you doubt that either is true. Instead you will contribute to this nonsense town the finest memorial you can manage. It is the least you can do.

For now you spend way longer than you should fiddling with the fit of your rags and conclude you need another bedsheet immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEAH THIS WHOLE ANGSTY FIC HAD A LAMEASS PUNCHLINE ALL ALONG SUCK IT
> 
> Anyway, if you've made it this far, thank you for reading!


End file.
